well enough in their way, but Preez
simply,--a short name and a bad one. They were big holders
of land, with every reason to be rich, but bad farmers,
lazy hunters, and deep drinkers. The Kafirs down there make
a drink out of fruit which is very fiery and conquers a man
quickly, and these people were always to be seen half
drunk, or else stupid from the stuff. Old Preez, the
father, in particular, was a terrible man, by all tellings;
full threescore and ten years of age, but strong, fiery,
and full of oaths. My second husband used to say there was
something in the look of him that daunted one; for his hair
and his beard were white, his face was savagely red, and
his eyes were like hot coals. And with it all he had a way
of looking on you that made you run from him. When he was
down with drink and fever he would cry out in a terrible
voice that his mother was a queen's daughter and he was a
prince."

"I have heard of the people you speak of," I said. "They
are half-Portuguese, and perhaps the old man was not wholly
lying."

"Um! Well, prince or not, he married in his youth a woman
of the half-blood, and begot of her a troop of devils. Five
sons he had, all great men, knowing not God and fearing
none of God's works. And after them came a daughter, a
puling slip of a thing, never meant to live, whom they did
to death among them with their drinking and blaspheming and
fighting.

"My second husband told me tales of that family that set my
blood freezing. He had his own way of telling stories, and
made you see pictures, as it were. Once, he used to say,
for a trifle spoken concerning them and their ways, they
visited a missionary by night, dragged him from his bed,
and crucified him against his door, while his wife clung to
the old man's knees and besought the mercy they never gave
and never got. Even the wild folk of the countryside were
stricken with the horror and impiety of the deed; and it
says much for the fear in which the Preez family were held
that none molested them or called them to account.

"In the end the eldest of the five sons took a mind to
marry and to leave some of his accursed stock to plague the
world when it should be delivered from him and his
brothers. They cast about for a wife for him, and were not
content with the first that offered. They had their pride,
the Preez, and in their place a fair measure of respect,
for among the wicked, you know, the devil is king. From one
farmhouse to ano